Strengthening Sentences/Transcript
Transcript Text reads: The Mysteries of Life with Tim and Moby. Chewing is heard. A man, Tim, and a robot, Moby, are sitting at a table. A half-eaten sandwich is sitting on the table. Moby appears to be ill. TIM: I can't believe we tried to eat that entire sandwich. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Do you want the last bit? MOBY: Beep. Moby places a hand over his mouth. Tim is heard reading from a typed letter. TIM: Dear Tim & Moby, The sentences I come up with are bad. How can I make them better? From Tio TIM: It’s easy to get stuck in a rut with your words. Take Moby — he’s an awful writer. Moby’s face turns from happy to angry. TIM: Let’s see how he would describe this scene here. Then we’ll strengthen his sentence and make it more interesting. Moby? MOBY: Beep! TIM: Aw, come on. It’s for the kids! Moby smiles. An animation shows Moby writing on a piece of paper. Writing is heard. Tim is heard reading the sentence written by Moby. TIM: The very big sandwich that had been half-eaten by Tim and Moby lay on the table that Tim and Moby were sitting at. Wow. This is probably the worst sentence on the planet. Let’s see if we can fix this monster up. First of all, it goes on forever. Long sentences can be confusing and boring. Let’s see, where can we chop this? Do we really need to say "Tim and Moby" twice? The video changes. An image shows the text of Moby’s sentence. The text “Tim and Moby” is highlighted. TIM: Repetitive, or redundant, wording makes sentences sound awkward. The very big sandwich that had been half-eaten by Tim and Moby lay on the table that they were sitting at. Huh, that’s better than it was . . . which isn’t saying much. The video changes. An animation shows Tim speaking and then the video changes back to Moby’s sentence. A portion of sentence has been replaced by the text “they were.” This text is highlighted. TIM: Hey, you know what really stinks about this sentence? It uses the passive voice. MOBY: Beep? TIM: That’s when you make the object of an action into the subject. The video changes. An animation shows Tim speaking to Moby and then the video changes back to Moby’s sentence. The text “sandwich” and “had been half-eaten” are highlighted. TIM: See where what’s happening here? You don’t say, “The sandwich was eaten by Moby,” you say, “Moby ate the sandwich.” The video changes. The screen is divided in half. Above the left section, text reads: The sandwich was eaten by Moby. In the left section, an image shows a sandwich entering Moby’s mouth. Above the right section, text reads: Moby ate the sandwich. In the right section, an image shows Moby holding a sandwich to his mouth. TIM: The first sentence is passive — it makes it seem like the sandwich is doing all the work. The second sentence is in active voice, because the subject, Moby, is performing the action. Text appears at the bottom of the left section. Text reads: passive voice. Text appears at the bottom of the right section. Text reads: active voice. TIM: So let’s get active in our example: “Tim and Moby sat at the table. They had just eaten half of the very big sandwich.” See how much simpler that is? Now that the passive voice is gone, the focus is on the subject: us! The video changes. One-by-one the text read aloud by Tim appears on the screen. MOBY: Beep? TIM: Well, this isn’t bad, but it isn’t exciting, and it doesn’t really tell us all that much. We can add some modifiers, descriptive phrases or words, to make it stronger. How about: "Tim and Moby sat at the kitchen table, too full to move." The video changes. An animation shows Tim speaking and then the video changes back to the text. A portion of text has been replaced by the text “Tim and Moby sat at the kitchen table, too full to move.” This text is highlighted. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Right, adding the words “too full to move” tells you how we’re feeling, and gives you an idea of what we were doing before the sentence. The video changes. A drawing shows Tim and Moby. They both appear to be ill. The drawing fades and a large circle appears on the screen. Inside the circle, an image shows Tim holding a sandwich to his mouth. TIM: And adding “kitchen” helps describe the scene in more detail. The circle disappears and in its place a drawing of Tim and Moby appears. They both appear to be ill. The background of the drawing changes from solid purple to a kitchen. TIM: But we can juice this sentence up even more. We’ll get rid of words like “very” and “really” — they’re overused and not that informative. Instead of “very big,” let’s say “giant.” It gets the idea across better, and with fewer words. In the first sentence, “full” is kind of a boring way to say we ate too much. How else can we say that? The video changes, An animation shows Moby reading a thesaurus. MOBY: Beep? TIM: “Too satiated to move?” Well, that’s different, but maybe a little weird. How about, “too stuffed to move?” That paints a more vivid picture, without being too fancy-sounding. “Tim and Moby sat at the kitchen table too stuffed to move. They had just eaten half of the giant sandwich” MOBY: Beep. TIM: Well, none of these suggestions is a hard and fast rule. Sometimes, long sentences sound good. Sometimes the passive voice works. It’s all a question of style. But there are a few steps you can keep in mind to improve your writing. First, read it out loud — if a sentence sounds confusing or weird, it probably reads that way, too. The video changes. An image shows a man reading from a piece of paper. TIM: Cut out or change any words that don’t make your point clearer or more interesting. The image disappears and in its place an image shows a hand holding a red marker. A piece of paper is underneath the hand. Lines are drawn across the paper to represent text. A red “X” is drawn over a portion of one of the lines. TIM: Finally, check to see that you don’t use the passive voice too often. Overall, try to make your writing simple and direct. Oh . . . Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I need to go to the hospital. MOBY: Beep! The video changes. An animation shows Tim and Moby sitting at a table. A half-eaten sandwich is sitting on the table. Moby holds a hand up to his mouth. TIM: No, I’m serious. I think that sandwich broke something.Category:BrainPOP Transcripts